


nepenthe

by Pride_and_Proud



Category: We Are The Tigers - Allen
Genre: Addiction, Alcohol, Angst, Anxiety, Chess-centric, Drug Use, Panic Attacks, Vomiting, cursing, just the average highschool shit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:30:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25460149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pride_and_Proud/pseuds/Pride_and_Proud
Summary: nepenthe(n.)1. a drug or drink, or the plant yielding it, mentioned by ancient writers as having the power to bring forgetfulness of sorrow or trouble.2. anything inducing a pleasurable sensation of forgetfulness, especially of sorrow or trouble.
Relationships: Chess & Kate (We Are The Tigers)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

Have you ever been high? Have you ever wanted to be high?

No?

Let’s try this then. Have you ever felt like dancing but not wanted to put yourself in a position that would require any interaction? Have you had the feeling of everything lasting hours where you are able to take everything at your own pace. 

When you are sucked out of reality and into your mind, and you can just forget about everything around you. Everything is calm because you’re in control for once in your life. Free to live. Free to dream. Free to be until the memory of the reality drags you out of your fantasy realm and each anxiety and insecurity resurfaces. Wouldn't you give anything to be back where you’re free?

Think back to the last time happiness was all you could feel. Not a single care in the world about, well, anything. All inhibitions wiped away and life is bliss. Those moments in time when confidence overtakes every inch of your mind, and you have no more shits to give. 

Right now, paranoia and anxiety haunt your thoughts. Each look a person gives you seems judgmental. Why else would they look in your direction? If they weren’t criticizing you in their head, how could they notice anything about you? You’re just you. 

You don’t want to be you anymore, do you? Who would you rather be? The friend who’s just confided in you about her arguing parents? The boy who has to return to a home smelling like weed and booze? Or do you want to be the girl dealing with the fact she lost her virginity before she was 12.

No? So you don’t want to be you, but you won’t take any of these problems when becoming somebody else. You won’t take insomnia in exchange for perfect hair? You don’t want to be you. Who do you want to be?

You want to be the person with no insecurities, in control of their life, and free to live, don’t you? You love that person. You love when you get to be that person. 

And you can be that person. It’s so simple and short. Thirty minutes to an hour and you can be confident and happy. 

Have you ever been high? Have you ever wanted to be?


	2. Paying Off a Debt

There were no words to describe the feeling of pride that washed over Chess when Kate and Eve started dating. They worked. Kate smiled with her, laughed with her, and most importantly, she cried with Eva.

Kate found somebody who she could be vulnerable around. Just watching her be happy made Chess feel that Kate might find true happiness again.

And Eva. Chess hadn’t realized it at first, but she’d met Eva before.

~o~

“Excuse me, can I play with this cat?” A girl asked softly while tapping on Chess’s shoulder.

Chess whipped around to be greeted by a girl, probably her age, in a varsity jacket as she pointed to an old Manx cat. “Sure. Just head into that room over there, and I can take him out.” Chess strutted over to the nine year old cat with a smile on her face. As she unlocked the cage, the old cat sprinted towards Chess, trying to jump onto her shoulder. She walked him into the room with the girl and released him onto the floor.

She stared at the old cat with wide eyes and pure amazement. “He’s so old,” she said. She crouched down to get closer to the feline, and he lunged at her jacket. “No offense, but aren’t you a bit young to be working at an animal shelter.”

Chess chuckled and crossed her legs. “I don’t work here. Well, I volunteer here after school because I have service hours to catch up on.” God, the amount of times she’d been pulled out of school for gymnastics practice, Chess missed half of her classes for years.

The girl in the varsity jacket smiled while lifting up the cat to face Chess. “Oh, what school do you go to?” Her backwards snapback hat flipped off her head as she leaned against the wall, perching the old cat on her lap. Upon closer observation, Chess noticed the white and blue “West High” insignia on her jacket.

“Giles Corey.” Chess tossed the cat, Levi, a treat, which he scrambled off of the other teen to grab.

“Oh.”

“Well, why’d you say it like that?” Chess knew Giles Corey kids could be a bit, how to phrase this properly, shitty, but the tone in her voice was worse than Chess could’ve ever imagined.

“You guys are just, how do I put this nicely. Actually, you can’t. Spoiled.”

“Ah.”

“Rich. Uptight.”

“Uh huh.”

“Little white brats.”

Chess sat, half gaping at the girl, half smiling. “Well, you were right, there’s no nice way of saying that. Your honesty reminds me of a friend of mine. I can’t tell if you’d hate each other because of it or get along.”

They just sat in silence, watching Levi gnaw on a Happy Kitty Tickle Kick Stick, which was frankly the longest and most absurd name Chess had ever heard for a cat toy but whatever.

“My name’s Eva, by the way,” she broke the silence. “Can I look into adopting him?”

“Oh, all members of your household had to have met the animal in question before adoption. And I’m Chess.”

Chess genuinely couldn’t get a solid reading on Eva. She failed to read the social cues that she shouldn’t continue, but it could just be that she’s flustered. All she knew for a fact was she was a lesbian. No doubt in her mind, that girl’s a lesbian. But outside of her very obvious sexual preference, Chess failed to gather enough information about her to form an opinion. And that pissed her off.

Cold. Calculating. Precise. She tried to read a person from the very first interaction. “It’s setting yourself up for success” her mother would tell her constantly. A pitiful excuse for parental advice. It gave her paranoia and anxiety, not a beginning to a successful career. One wrong move set her off, and she questioned everything. That’s why she-

It didn’t matter.

Eva’s nervous behavior frustrated Chess, not because she was being annoying, but because Chess had so many questions about who she was. Something about her ability to hide her persona made Chess suspicious. Eva wasn’t a dangerous person, anybody could tell that from seeing her trip on her shoelaces when she walked into the shelter. Yet the way Chess’s mother conditioned her to be made Chess tick at every odd behavior drove her insane. Maybe if she could just balance her mind-

Chess shoved her hands into her pockets with a huff, taking note of her medicine that resided in her pocket. “If you want to adopt him, I can do you a favor. I don’t want you to miss out on this adorable little guy,” Chess said, her voice gradually growing more and more babyish. “But you’ll owe me one later, deal.”

“Deal.” Eva’s phone buzzed in her jacket, and she stood up with panicked mannerisms. “Oh, I gotta go. Look after him for me, okay?”

For three weeks, Chess made excuses for people to not adopt Levi. “Oh, sorry, he actually has an eye surgery tomorrow” or “the people adopting him are actually coming in a few minutes, sorry, we just haven’t updated the sign.”

Kate came up with a few especially stupid reasons, hardly even knowing the context behind the situation. “Sorry, ma’am, but he’s a guest speaker at my cousin’s hamsters sweet sixteen.”

“Why are you lying?” Chess murmured to Kate as the woman walked away.

“Cause if you’re lying, I should get to lie too,” Kate responded. A very Kate mentality to have. “Why are _you_ lying?”

Chess sighed. “There’s this girl wh-”

“Oh my god, do you have a crush on this girl?” Kate interrupted excitedly. The hope in her eyes broke Chess’ heart. Because it wasn’t a hope that Chess would find someone, it was a hope she reciprocated the feelings Kate so obviously harbored for her.

“I- no. She was one of the first people who wanted to adopt Levi, but she’s waiting for her family to show up.”

Three hours passed, and Kate and Chess sat on the counter of the reception desk as the actual workers closed up the building. “I don’t think she’s ever coming back for little old Levi,” Kate told Chess with a heavy chest.

Chess shook her head sadly. “No, there’s still an hour till closing.”

As if spoken into existence, Eva and four others marched up to the door. She burst through the doors. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I meant to come back sooner but then my sister had this thing and I just- Is he still here?”

“It’s okay, Eva, he’s still here. My friend and I had a fun time looking over him while you were gone, right Kate?” Chess walked over to the cage where Levi sat staring out of the crate.

“Uh huh, yeah, lying is fun. It’s my favorite pastime,” Kate stammered. Chess turned to her with a look on her face saying ‘what the hell was that?’ and Kate shrugged nervously.

Eva and Kate awkwardly stared at each other before Eva smiled and started laughing, breaking their silence. “Woo! Deception!” Eva chuckled.

Chess called a real worker to handle everything with the adoption papers as Kate and Chess watched Eva and her family playing with Levi. “Oh, you’re so hopelessly gay,” Chess whispered in Kate’s ear.

“Shut up!” Kate shoved Chess off of the desk. “Come on, let’s go home.”

~o~

Even though Chess couldn’t get a reading on Eva back then, she knew everything she needed to know now. She made Kate happy, and that’s all Chess cared about.

Chess looked down on Eva holding Kate’s waist while she rode down a hill on a skateboard, and she couldn’t help but grin while Kate tumbled off of the board and looked up at Eva with a smirk as they laughed with each other.

“Look after her for me, okay, Eva. You owe me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god, I haven't updated this shit in over a month. I had three different possibilities for this chapter, but this one felt like the best choice. Y'all actually read this and liked it, which is shocking, but thank y'all.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not encouraging the uses of drugs or any alcoholic substances, just trying to connect to the character. I really like Chess, and she's criminally underrated. I will be returning with a second chapter of this eventually because this chapter is just a prologue.


End file.
